Intelligence
by Usa Serenity
Summary: What would happen if a senshi were to snap? Please R


Hello Again! Here's another quick one from me.   
I'm not much for author's notes, but I wanted to  
put in the standard disclaimer.   
I don't own Sailormoon.   
There....good enough???  
  
Email you feedback to:  
usa28@email.com  
  
or visit me at:  
http://members.nbci.com/usa28  
  
Enjoy!  
  
  
  
Intelligence   
  
by: Usa Serenity   
  
  
  
  
  
We all have our buttons. Those little points in our minds that set us   
off on some unknown tangent of emotion. For some of us it is a   
physical quality, one that can be changed if we try hard enough or pay  
enough money, but even if the quality is changed, the button never   
really goes away. For others, it is a factor of our personality that   
cannot be changed no matter how hard we try. To suppress it would be   
so taxing on our personas that we would lose part of ourselves.   
It is these unchangeable factors that have the most sensitive buttons,  
even though they may not be apparent to those around us. Buttons may   
have once been a defense mechanism, a way for nature to tap us on the   
shoulder and say, "Hey!"   
But in this day and age, most buttons are a hardship. They produce   
holes in our psyche that fill up slowly with fear, anger, and   
resentment until the day that one more push of the button makes that   
well of emotion erupt like some long dormant volcano. Then, the button  
simply becomes a trigger.   
  
  
  
She walked home from school like any other day, except it wasn't. She  
called out, "Tadaima!" like any other day, except it wasn't, but she   
didn't know that yet.   
"Ami, come in here. We need to talk to you." The words disturbed her,   
but she didn't know why.   
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of shock, tears, and   
shattered dreams. Her parents were separating. Her father was leaving,  
and she and her mother were moving. Her father was already packed,   
and she noticed that there were no pictures on the walls in the   
family room. The knickknacks and whatnots were gone from the shelves,   
as were the books. Then, she saw the boxes. Innocuous squares of   
brown cardboard, sealed with darker brown tape. The sight of the   
growing pile made her want to scream, and because she was still young   
enough to be able to do that, she did. She ran blindly up the stairs   
to her room, or what would be her room for only a few more weeks. She   
threw herself on the bed and screamed and kicked and cried until   
exhaustion overtook her young body, and then she slept.   
  
School was painful. She had always loved learning, but the joy had   
been taken out of even that. Her friends tried to comfort her, but   
they didn't have the right words, no one did. Her teachers grew   
concerned as they watched the once outgoing blue-haired child wilt   
and withdraw before their eyes. When they discovered what had   
happened, they looked at her with sympathetic eyes, and let her exist   
in her own glass encased world. On her last day in the only school she  
had ever attended, a boy who had transferred in only a few days before   
created the button.   
"Look! Brainy Ami is crying again!!" he laughed and pointed, to her   
humiliation.   
  
The new school and neighborhood was fine. She put all her energy into   
her studies, and was rewarded by insults and teasing from the other   
students. Brainy Ami was a hurtful nickname that seemed to stick,   
wherever she went. She and her mother moved fairly often now, since   
her mother was in a residency program that required her to relocate   
about every six months. Ami didn't mind. She didn't even try to make   
friends, because she didn't want to lose them. Her grades were always   
perfect. That was the only aspect of her life that she had complete   
control over. She decided that she wanted to become a doctor, like her  
mother, but only because it was one of the most academically   
challenging professions she could think of. The little well in her   
psyche grew deeper, and resentment and anger began to leak into it.   
  
The move that took her to Juuban was an ordinary one. She had come   
home from school and found her mother packing up those hateful   
cardboard boxes again, and only asked where they were going this time.  
The apartment here was nicer than any of the others they had lived at   
before. The top floor, in fact, the penthouse. Her mother was finally   
finished with her residency and had secured a well paying job as a   
surgeon at the local hospital. This job seemed to take even more of   
her time than her residency had, but Ami let that slide. She had   
grown into a very self sufficient fourteen year old, and could have   
probably lived alone if she had been forced to.   
She rode up the slow, quiet elevator and unlocked the door with her   
key. She didn't bother calling out, because she knew her mother   
wouldn't be home until well after she had gone to bed. She laid the   
mail on the small table in the foyer, there was a cylindrical package   
there, addressed to her, that she wanted to save until later. Those   
white paper rolls were the only joy left in her life, and she was   
glad they weren't made of the hateful brown cardboard.   
She went into the kitchen and fixed herself a sandwich. She liked   
sandwiches, they meant very little clean up, and she could read and   
study while she ate. No wasted motion, no wasted time, no hurtful   
reminders of the meals she used to share with her family. She made a   
side trip to the foyer to grab the white paper package and her   
carryall, and went up to her room to study.   
The homework was easy enough. So easy, in fact, that she purposefully   
made herself stay at least ten chapters ahead just so she would feel   
the pressure she seemed to crave. She wasn't sure what she would do   
when she completed the courses ahead of schedule and had to wait for   
the others, she didn't want to think about that now. She put away her   
books and picked up the package lovingly. She went to the oak desk   
that sat in front of the big window that looked over Juuban. She   
carefully unwound the (thankfully) clear tape that sealed the package.  
She removed the plastic end and shook out a roll of heavy white paper.   
She unrolled it slowly to reveal the painting. It was a landscape,   
just like all the others, and it was unsigned like the others as well.  
She felt the hot tears welling in her eyes as she took in the watery   
scene. The lake seemed to shine with a life of it's own, and the   
mountains in the background rose up majestically. She could almost   
feel the breeze on her face, and for a moment, was lost in the   
beautiful water color. A memory seeped into her consciousness,   
unbidden.   
*Papa! Draw me and Mama!* the little girl chimed, not noticing the   
beginnings of a frown on her mother's face, although in the hindsight   
of memory, it was all too clear.   
*Not now precious, I'll draw you later, but I think Mama is too tired  
now.*   
The tiny spark of memory released the flood gates of emotion and Ami   
sobbed. She threw the painting roughly to the floor only to   
immediately fall to her knees, smoothing the picture and splashing it   
with scalding tears. The colors blurred and spread where the tears   
hit, giving the painting an abstract look. She carefully put the   
landscape in a drawer, on top of a stack of equally abstract looking   
paintings, and got into her bed fully clothed to sleep a restless and  
dream filled sleep.   
Her dreams had always been strange. A tangled mix of sights and sounds  
that were foreign, yet familiar. An unearthly grey-blue landscape with  
mountains tinged with silver and deep, shadow filled valleys. There   
was usually a face, both hidden and revealed, that watched over the   
strange, black horizon. This face was so beautiful that sometimes Ami   
cried in her dream. A haunting voice would cry out from the lovely   
face, and Ami would awaken, cheeks stiff with dried tears. The dream   
seemed even more powerful tonight, and she felt very out of place   
when she awoke. She was confused at first as to why she was still   
wearing her school uniform, but soon her fuzzy, sleep veiled mind   
cleared enough for her to remember. She got up slowly, and sat for a   
few minutes on the edge of the mattress to collect her thoughts. She   
shivered for a moment as her mind registered the feeling the dream   
always provoked....deep, icy cold.   
  
Some years later, she would recall how powerful this last dream had   
been, and connect it to her very first meeting with Tsukino Usagi,   
otherwise known as Sailormoon, last princess of the moon from the   
royal house of Serenity. For a while, her resentment and anger seemed   
to die down, as she was accepted whole heartedly by her friends, both   
of the past and the present, the Sailor Senshi. But, even those   
positive feelings were overcome by the negative ones, as her so-called  
friends seemed more and more interested in her intellect instead of   
her heart. Even these friends made jokes from time to time about her   
'brainy' activities. The reservoir of resentment began to grow again,   
this time more steadily filling the recess in her psyche.   
Each battle gave her an almost euphoric release, and she began to   
look forward to those enemies that took her strongest attacks to   
defeat. She withdrew from the group, citing homework and cram school   
as an excuse to avoid her 'friends'. Why should she bother going over?  
All they wanted from her was a tutor. Not one of them had ever asked   
her about anything personal. Just a simple, "How are you holding up,   
Ami?" would have meant the world to her and just might have made a   
tiny crack in well of anger that had formed in her subconscious. But,   
no. They only kept her around for her brain, her intelligence, that   
meaningless number that was her I.Q.   
  
She figured it out long before the rest of them. Her brain did have   
some uses. She had seen that lovely future, Crystal Tokyo, and had   
known instantly how it had been formed. She kept silent. Let them   
figure it out while it's happening, her mind screamed. Let them all   
wait and see! She waited, too, for although she knew the how and   
thought she knew the why, she did not know the when.   
  
Then when happened on a very ordinary day. Ami and the others were in   
their first years of college. Usagi had matured beyond any of their   
expectations after the battle with Galaxia. Nothing like seeing your   
friends die right in front of you to make you grow up. Of course, she   
had gone straight to Rei when it happened. Damn all the rest of you!   
Who cares about Ami, even though it was her 'intelligence' that got   
you as far as this. The resentment had caused a rift between Ami and   
the other senshi. It was small, and they all tried not to notice it,   
but it was there, pushing itself into every aspect of their lives.   
They still had their senshi meetings, but only about once a month now,  
with the hectic schedules of college and dating, and for Usagi,   
planning a summer wedding. Ami was a bridesmaid, of course, but only   
a third bridesmaid. The top spot belonged to Rei, followed by Mako,   
and Minako. Third bridesmaid! Who was with you the longest? Who   
taught you strategy? Just brainy Ami, that's who! But, she won't mind   
being last. Ami is so understanding and giving. Ami the sweet. Ami the  
gentle. Ami the smart. Ami the weak.   
  
She walked down the sidewalk, lost in her thoughts. She nodded to the   
doorman who always remembered her name, but only because she lived in   
the penthouse. She rode the slowly moving elevator to the top of the   
building, and used her key to open the door. There they were. Those   
damned, hateful boxes. The brown cardboard catalysts that always   
meant her life would be disrupted, disturbed. Her mother was there,   
too. Home in the afternoon. She turned to smile at Ami, and was   
frozen by the look on her daughter's face.   
"Ami...are you okay?" she stammered.   
Silence, cold, icy silence.   
"Ami..."   
"no...", Ami whispered.   
"NO!", she shouted.   
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" she screamed. The transformation that overtook   
her was subtly different from the usual Sailormercury. Her tiara was   
silver, instead of gold, and held a dark colored stone. Her gloves   
were short, similar to Uranus and Neptune, and she work winged sandals  
on her feet, instead of the knee high boots that normally came with   
the fuku. The power that washed over her was the strongest she had   
ever felt. The deep well of hatred, anger, and resentment poured   
itself into the growing stream as Ami's mother began to scream   
hysterically in the rapidly chilling room.   
  
Setsuna stood, shoulders slumping, as she watched the scenes play out   
in the eerie garnet light of her staff. The hateful cold washed over   
Juuban, then all of Tokyo, leaving towering crystal sculptures in it's  
wake. She watched as Ami grew pale and her feet began to freeze. She   
nodded to her companions, and Uranus, Neptune, and Saturn willed   
their power into Ami, allowing the icy freeze to cover most of the   
planet.   
"Is it done?" Hotaru asked with tears in her eyes.   
"For now." Setsuna replied.   
  
Deep, black cold was all she had known for what seemed like a lifetime.   
The warm silver light was foreign and soothing to her numb, frozen   
body. She let it play over her for a while, simple enjoying the   
difference from what she had gotten used to.   
*Mercury...*   
*Awaken...*   
Her eyes felt swollen, and her vision was very weak when her lids   
opened slightly. The intensity of the light was too much for her, and   
she squeezed them shut defensively. She tried again, this time able to  
hold her long unused eyes open long enough to become accustomed to the  
light. She tried to speak, but found her throat and mouth were too   
dry. A glass was offered, and the cool liquid felt exquisite on her   
parched tissues. She tried again, as the water moistened her mouth.   
"serenity......sorry....I..."   
"Mercury. Don't apologize. It is the rest of us who are to blame."   
  
Ami had expected to be stripped of her title, but the only thing she   
lost was her tiara. It seemed that the amount of energy required to   
form Crystal Tokyo had been too much for it. It had disintegrated,  
and did not reform with the rest of her fuku. She looked down over   
this city that she had created with her hated, and was in awe at its   
beauty.   
She had changed, as had everyone else. The normal 'humans' had not   
survived the freeze. Her mother among the casualties, along with the   
families of all the other senshi. They had all struggled to come to   
terms with that awful fact. Ami went into a deep depression, and  
almost took her own life, but was stopped by the formidable outer   
senshi and an unexpected arrival. There were physical changes along  
with the mental ones as well. She now knew no difference   
between herself and Sailormercury, except for her clothing. In fact,   
they were all able to use their powers at any time now, and didn't   
really need to transform. Their henshin wands had all disappeared.   
  
She walked into the foyer of her apartment when she heard the bell   
chime. It was probably the mail, she thought. She took her letters   
and the package from the soldier that always delivered them with a   
smile and a kind word. She lay them all on the small table by the   
door, and went into the kitchen to fix herself a sandwich. She still   
like them. She then made a quick trip back to the foyer to retrieve   
the small cylindrical package that had been delivered, and made her   
way up the stairs to her bedroom. She sat down at the small oak desk   
and began to unwind the (thankfully) clear tape that sealed the white   
paper roll, and felt the tears begin to fall again.   
  
  
  
  
Usa Serenity  
3/14/01  
  



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